


paint me all the colors of the morning

by thepensword



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/F, Fluff, POV Second Person, Poetic, Romance, griffin gave us all these lesbians and we just ignore them? come on, there's not really a point to this story i just wanted to write gay shit, uhhh gay shit? i love these girls i love girls, why is there so little wlw content in this fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-25
Updated: 2018-09-25
Packaged: 2019-07-17 06:54:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16090370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepensword/pseuds/thepensword
Summary: Sloane, in the morning, in the afternoon, in the nighttime; Sloane, who you catch and hold, and who is yours forever.





	paint me all the colors of the morning

**Author's Note:**

> i haven't slept and also i have a cold so i honestly have no idea if this makes any sort of sense but i just really wanted to write my girls all of a sudden so enjoy i guess

She's there in the morning. She's there amidst the cries of the sirens, she's there with the dappled light of the rising sun turning her dark hair to gold. She's there with her crooked smile beneath her mask.

You stare. For just a moment, you stare.

"Raven!" you call, after the moment has passed, and the Raven turns over her shoulder to look. The feathers on her mask are iridescent in the early light. "You're under arrest!"

The Raven doesn't say anything, only laughs, and then she's gone.

 

* * *

 

 

She's there in the afternoon. The shadows are long and bold beneath the buildings, and heat glistens above the pavement. You chase her into an alley and she laughs at you, back flush to the barbed wire and hip cocked. She stands so casually, so careless—she behaves as if she has nothing to lose. Like she truly believes there's nothing you can do to stop her. It's as infuriating as it is intoxicating.

"Raven," you start to say, but she interrupts with a laugh.

"I'm under arrest, right?" Her teeth flash white between her berry-red lips. You wonder how soft those lips would feel, how those teeth would feel against your skin, and then you bite down on that thought because you are an officer of the militia and she is a criminal. She has robbed and raced and run again and again and you ignore the part of you that enjoys the chase so terribly much.

(You've always been a rebel. Even as a child, danger made your blood sing and your bones hum with electricity. It's why you became a monk. It's why you joined the militia. You've always longed for adventure and the thrill of the chase is the excitement you so desperately crave.)

"Yes," you say, and draw your posture down into a fighting stance, trying to regain your composure. There's nowhere for her to run, anyway, you have her caught—

"Well," says the Raven. "This has been fun. Seeya!" 

And then she's gone. Over the fence, racing down the alley, laughter chasing her through the steady-growing afternoon shadows.

(You force the smile away from your lips and do not bother to follow. You will cross paths with her again.)

 

* * *

 

 

She's there in the evening.

"Race with me," begs the Raven. You've found her base of operations, the garage where she parks her battlewagon, and she had cursed at your appearance but smiled nonetheless. It's the first time you've seen her without her mask and you are struck by her beauty. There's grime on her face—oil from working with the battlewagon—and the dark hair that springs lose from her ponytail is sticking to her cheeks. Part of you wants to reach out and brush it behind her ear. Part of you, the sensible part, resists.

The world outside is quiet, dark violet beneath the fading light of the sky and cast with golden pools from streetlamps. The scene in the garage is a striking one. You're no mage, but you think this might be what magic feels like. The Raven takes your hands in hers and lowers herself to her knees and begs you to be her racing partner. You could take her down, right here, right now, you could drag her to justice—you know that. You think she knows it too, but she's not afraid of you. Never has she been afraid of you. Not once has she treated your chase as anything more than a game. 

"I could turn you in," you say. The Raven turns her head and watches you, not unlike a bird. "I could call reinforcements and catch you for good."

Her eyes flutter shut and shakes her head with a laugh. "Oh, Lieutenant Hurley," she says, and you've never heard her say your name before but now that you have you want nothing more but to hear it again and again and again, "Didn't you know you've had me caught the whole time?"

And this time, she does not run. And this time, you realize this was never a chase to begin with. You've had her all along, and she's had you.

Well. You've always been a rebel.

 

* * *

 

 

She's there at midnight.

You will remember this night forever. It was silver, you'll always think. It was silver. It is silver, right now, as it happens. The moonlight, that is, as it plays on her hair. As it bounces off of your skin, turning you pale as you reach for her.

"You have to see," says Sloane. Her eyes are silver, too, in that they are cold and distant. You don't know her like this. There has been a stranger in your bed for the past month and now you are confronted with that fact, because you don't know this strange, silver woman, metallic statue cold as ice. "With this belt I'm stronger. I'm  _better_. Hurley, we can be better together. We can be unstoppable, even! Please, you have to understand."

You don't understand. The Sloane you know laughs loud in the summer sunlight, guns her battlewagon over the finish line, tosses black hair over her shoulder and presses dusty kisses into your lips. This is not her. This isn't even the Raven you met so long ago, the Raven you chased, the Raven you caught and who caught you. This isn't her and you don't _understand_.

"Come back," you say. You're crying. When did you start crying? You wonder if, beneath that gods-damned moon, your tears are silver, too. "Come back to bed. Please. We can—we can talk about this."

Her face is hard. Unreadable. Foreign. You know in this moment that if you do not go with her, she'll be gone. But you caught her, how could she slip lose, it's not fair—" _Please,_ Sloane."

"I'm going to be stronger," says Sloane. You wonder if she even heard you. "I'm going to be _better_. If you can't see that, then maybe it's for the best you stay."

You open your mouth to call her back, to tell her you love her, but as the words slip from between your shaking lips, she's already gone.

 

* * *

 

 

She's there in the morning. Her hair lashing out from beneath her mask, the roar of the battlewagons; the three men by your side do not know the stakes. They think they do, but they could never understand. You don't try to tell them.

(You catch Magnus looking at you, as the others laugh. There's a glimpse of something there, you think, in his gaze. It's too still. Maybe he does understand.)

But it doesn't matter, because she's there, and you're there, and you're  _so close._

She's there in the afternoon, too. The sky is gray and churning with everything that's been thundering beneath your skin since the night that she left. You run to her, because it's the only thing you know how to do. You call her name, and she calls back, and then everything is very bright and very loud and then there is nothing.

She's there in the afternoon.  Or perhaps it's evening? The world is dimming but it seems far too early for the sun to set—

Oh.

She promises to keep you safe. "I can keep us together," she says. "We can be together for an eternity." And she kisses you, and it's wet with tears, and you kiss her back with the last of your strength and the press of her lips to yours is the last sensation you know.

 

* * *

 

 

She's there in the morning.

"We really did it, huh," she says. She sits beside you on a knobbed root of your tree and holds your hand tight in hers. There is blood and grime and sap splattered across the both of you, and Goldcliff is in shambles, but it's safe. You're both safe. She's safe and she's yours again and everything is perfect.

"We did," you agree, and you pull her into a kiss. Her lips are softer than you'd expected now that you're both mostly tree; they feel like petals, like the soft pink of her cherry-blossom hair running over your fingers. You hold her close and she holds you back and you've caught her. You know you've caught her. You know that this time, it's for good.

"When did you first know?" you ask. "That you had my heart?"

She laughs. She laughs that same laugh that has been ringing through your ears like a song for what seems like your entire life—or, at least, the entirety of your life that matters. "From the moment I laid eyes on you," she says. "I saw you, Lieutenant Hurley, and I knew I had to make you mine, so I stole you away."

"Thief," you say. You're happy. You've never been so happy.

"Some lieutenant you are, letting yourself get caught instead," she responds, and smiles like a bolt of lightning. 

It's the morning and your world is cast in shades of pink and blue, as the sky above clears of the Hunger's darkness, as the city slowly, steadily begins to rebuild. You sit on the roots of your tree beside the woman you love more than anything and you know that everything will be alright.

"I love you," you say. She curls around you, presses her face into your hair. She doesn't say it back, but she holds you tight and you know.

You know.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! i love,,,,hurloane. my tumblr is [here](https://thepensword.tumblr.com) and my twitter is [here](https://twitter.com/thepensw0rd)


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